#sept 11 terror attacks
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"Few are left who remember the wartime unity that followed Pearl Harbor in 1941, a national mood we experienced again, if only briefly, after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."
>mass incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans in 1940s
>huge increase in Islamophobia in wake of Sep 11
>"wartime unity"
>Ok, NPR, sure, whatever you say
(from this article)
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As a devastating crisis continues to unfold with the horrific bombardment of Gaza, there is little sense of how it will end. As a lifelong student of Israel-Palestine, I found my mind racing through many historical dates to find parallels, meaning, and direction.
Perhaps the date that comes to mind for most people is Oct. 6, 1973, the start of an Arab war effort to regain land taken by Israel in 1967. The 1973 surprise attack, which was 50 years and a day from the Oct. 7 Hamas assault, caught a recalcitrant and hubristic Israel off guard and fundamentally changed the way it thought about its policies toward Egypt in the years that followed, paving the way for a historic peace agreement a few years later.
I thought about the 1968 Battle of Karameh. This battle, little known in Western narratives of the conflict but hugely consequential in Palestinian ones, came after the 1967 war, when Israel enjoyed an aura of invincibility. PLO fighters alongside Jordanian soldiers fought the Israeli military, destroyed some military equipment, and captured more. The battle sent the message that Israeli power was not what it seemed, and it helped swell the ranks of militant factions across the region.
But a more important date stands out: Sept. 6, 1972. The day prior, Palestinian guerrillas had killed an Israeli coach and athlete and taken nine other members of the Israeli team hostage at the Munich Olympic Village, where all the cameras of the world had assembled, and by the time a botched rescue attempt by the German police had concluded, all the hostages and most of the Palestinian guerrillas were dead.
The world watched this all play out on live TV. Before that moment, and perhaps since, no set of events has had a more consequential impact on the emergence of what I call the terrorism framework: a set of policies and practices that defines how such moments should be understood, responded to, and prevented.
At the time, the Nixon White House was scrambling to figure out how to respond. Its foreign policy at the time was focused on detente with Moscow in an effort to manipulate Soviet and Chinese relations as the U.S. war on Vietnam raged. The Middle East, a massive arena of U.S.-Soviet competition, could easily derail all of this. President Richard Nixon’s now infamous tape recorder gives us insight into the thinking at the time.
On Sept. 6, Secretary of State William Rogers had a conversation with Nixon in the Oval Office in the presence of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and other officials. Rogers’s message to Nixon was straightforward: What happened in Munich was a symptom. “Say Israel retaliates and blows up something in Lebanon, that doesn’t help anyone,” Rogers told Nixon. “What this does indicate to the world is that we’ve got to solve the problem. It’s a hell of a thing to have 11 Israelis killed, and it’s a hell of a thing to have millions of people homeless all these years. So the problem has to be solved.” Nixon was receptive to Rogers’s argument, but Kissinger sat quietly and was alarmed.
Kissinger left the Oval Office and telephoned the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Yitzhak Rabin, to tell him about the meeting. Kissinger had his calls taped and transcribed as well. After hearing about the Oval office meeting, Rabin feared “that those who carried out the action in Munich succeeded beyond their expectations.” Kissinger urged Rabin to go to the U.N. Security Council to try to build a global consensus around fighting terrorism even if the United States and Israel would be isolated there.
Kissinger told him going to the Security Council would “not lead to any practical results but it will focus the problem on an issue on which we can talk jointly while the great danger that I see is that in a few days people will say—as was said at the meeting this morning—we must remove the cause of this.” He urged him that they should do it “before people start thinking about the problem.”
Kissinger was concerned that if the global debate about Munich was not immediately redirected toward uniform condemnation of the Palestinian guerrillas, the more people might think about the root causes and Palestinian grievances.
Herein lies the trap of the terrorism framework. It ostensibly aims to counter political violence, but it does so in a way that ensures political violence persists—by exceptionalizing it as a form of violence that comes from a vacuum. Unlike most forms of political violence—such as interstate conflicts and civil wars, insurgencies, rebellions, or political repression—terrorism is not something we are encouraged to understand the causes of; at best, reductionist explanations chalk up motivations to ideology, which, in the Palestinian case, is transparently flawed since Palestinian political violence has always transcended ideological divides.
By adopting this framework, opponents of this violence position themselves as standing with the victims of it and condemning the perpetrators. But in reality, they are merely condemning them all to continued and more horrific rounds of carnage.
It is a framework that allows leaders with the greatest capacity to prevent such violence—in this case, the leaders of the United States and Israel—a way to absolve themselves of responsibility at the expense of the very people whom they have a responsibility to protect. At the end of the day, it is always ordinary people, not states or policymakers or the media outfits that amplify them, who pay the highest price for this commitment to not thinking.
Israel, of course, would go on to blow up many things in Lebanon after 1972, and its invasion of southern Lebanon 10 years later led to a nearly two-decade occupation and the birth and strengthening of Hezbollah into a force that now requires U.S. aircraft carriers to help Israel deter.
It is easy to react to this by claiming that understanding the causes amounts to justification. That is precisely what this dangerous framework encourages us to do: It flattens political violence into a question of good and evil—to which impulse, not thought, is the only fitting response.
The reality is that political violence is part of the human condition and always has been, long before Zionism and long before Palestine. When humans commit to study pathology, it is not out of some desire to justify the diseases that plague us but rather to try to eliminate them; to the extent that there is any evil in this equation, it is in the ideological commitment to refuse to examine the cause of the disease. Without a genuine understanding of why this is happening—one that does not exceptionalize the problem or the perpetrators of violence on any side—it becomes impossible to heal what ails Israelis and Palestinians alike.
The terrorism framework absolves leaders of responsibility to address root causes, but it can also be manipulated in ways that magnify its harm. There is no better example of this than Israel’s policy toward Gaza over the last decade and a half. It was precisely because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew he could rely on the terrorism framework absolving him of any responsibility for Gaza that he preferred to keep Hamas in power there so he could prevent any diplomatic progress toward ending the occupation.
This logic has been explained by multiple Israeli officials over the years. In 2005, when then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to remove Israeli ground forces and settlers from Gaza, it was billed by many as a concession toward achieving peace, but, as his advisor Dov Weisglass explained in a 2004 interview, it was a move designed to do the exact opposite.
By keeping Gaza separate from the West Bank and ensuring Palestinian political fragmentation and a failed statelet in Gaza, Israel was creating an excuse to never make peace that it knew would be accepted. This “no-one-to-talk-to certificate,” which Weisglass said would be approved by Washington, says: “(1) There is no one to talk to. (2) As long as there is no one to talk to, the geographic status quo remains intact. (3) The certificate will be revoked only when this-and-this happens—when Palestine becomes Finland. (4) See you then, and shalom.” This approach, Weisglass added, “supplies the amount of formaldehyde that’s necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.” Netanyahu, according to the Jerusalem Post, told his associates in 2019 that propping up Hamas in Gaza would keep Palestinians divided and that “whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for” it.
The PLO had renounced terrorism and recognized Israel (even though Israel never recognized Palestine’s right to exist), and those shifts in PLO positions brought it out of the terrorism framework and into the peace process. But Hamas didn’t follow the same path, in part because the group saw how that path had failed to produce any results for the PLO. Netanyahu, who was always opposed to Palestinian statehood, understood that Hamas represented a get-out-of-talks-free card, just as Weisglass had envisioned.
The costs of the failure to think about the problem have never been higher. More Israelis were killed on Oct. 7 than at any time in the country’s history. More Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in three weeks than in all of Israel’s previous military operations in Gaza combined. Save the Children has said that the “number of children reported killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.” The horrific and ever growing bloodshed underscores the failure of military solutions.
How many Israelis and Palestinians would still be with us had we committed to thinking about the problem—rather than avoiding it—in 1972?
Breaking from this continued pattern of violence requires an understanding of the difference between justice and vengeance. The lesson that the Greek playwright Aeschylus taught so many years ago is as easily forgotten as vital to remember: The difference between the two concepts is law, which exists only to the extent that there is faith in the equal application of it.
When illegal violence, including war crimes, committed by one side is routinely condemned and the perpetrators held accountable and illegal violence by the other side, including war crimes, is never condemned and the perpetrators are instead excused and enabled to continue perpetrating such violence to ever greater extents, law exists not as an instrument of justice but an instrument of oppression; vengeance reigns; and we lock countless more innocents into lives of horror.
This is precisely where the terrorism framework has led us.
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Adeel Mangi is not a victim of “Islamophobia,” “bigoted smears” or anti-Muslim discrimination, as Timothy Lewis’s recent Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed asserted. The real reasons bipartisan senators, Jewish organizations and others oppose confirming Mangi as a federal appellate judge (one step below the U.S. Supreme Court) are the following:
Mangi was until recently an advisory director and repeated donor to a viciously antisemitic, anti-American, pro-terror organization—the so-called “Center for Security, Race and Rights” (CRSS) at Rutgers Law School; Mangi evaded questions and improbably professed ignorance about key matters (including antisemitism, terrorism and Middle East issues) that are likely to come before the federal appellate court; and Mangi has absolutely no judicial experience.
It is absurd to claim that a bipartisan group of senators oppose Mangi’s confirmation because Mangi is Muslim. The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed another recent Muslim nominee for a federal judgeship: Zahid Nisar Quraishi.
The majority of appellate judicial nominees have years of prior judicial experience and a record of judicial decisions that can be vetted. In public statements and letters, leading Jewish organizations involved in combating antisemitism, including: our organization, the Zionist Organization of America; Americans Against Antisemitism; StopAntisemitism; Students Supporting Israel; and the Coalition for Jewish Values (representing over 2,500 rabbis) noted that it is dangerous to elevate Mangi to a lifetime Court of Appeals judgeship when he has no judicial record to examine, which is not even to mention his alarming CRSS involvements.
Among other horrors, while Mangi was on CRSS’s Advisory Board (referred to as its “brain trust”), CRSS celebrated the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks’ 20th anniversary by hosting terror-affiliated speakers, including Sami Al-Arian, who was convicted for funneling funds, goods and services to the designated terror organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad. CRSS also hosted a group whose officials have connections to Al-Qaeda and Hamas networks, the notorious antisemite and anti-Israel propagandist Rashid Khalidi, and Israel-bashing BDS groups and leaders including Jewish Voice for Peace, Peter Beinart, Khaled Elgindy and Marc Lamont Hill (who was terminated by CNN for antisemitic comments).
Furthermore, CRSS’s website posted a resource guide listing and linking to numerous antisemitic, anti-Israel, BDS and terror-linked organizations, films, books, journals, “educational resources,” websites, podcasts and reports.
CRSS’s website also included CRSS Executive Director Sahar Aziz’s open letter praising and justifying Hamas terrorism and denying Israel’s right to self-defense while Hamas launched 4,500 rockets at Israel in May 2021. Aziz recruited Mangi to the CRSS advisory board. The Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest New Jersey stated that “Aziz has regularly and consistently promoted vile antisemitic propaganda” on social media and elsewhere.
In addition to his own donations and services, Mangi obtained donations from his law firm for CRSS.
During his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mangi repeatedly refused to condemn viciously antisemitic, anti-Israel CSRR events and statements by reciting this mantra: “I do not have the expertise or factual background to express views regarding the complex history of the conflict in the Middle East, which is irrelevant to my potential work on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.”
Of course, condemning antisemitism and antisemitic Israel-bashing does not take expertise; it just takes courage. Moreover, antisemitism and Middle East issues are highly relevant to potential cases on the Third Circuit, including cases seeking remedies for antisemitic attacks and harassment on college campuses and city streets; cases regarding antisemitic boycotts; and cases brought by victims of Hamas and other terror groups under federal victims of terrorism and victims of torture statutes. Mangi is unfit and unqualified to fairly judge these important matters and should not be confirmed.
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By Arwa Mahdawi
The Guardian Opinions
Sept. 10, 2022
CNN has a very odd definition of ‘objectivity’
CNN wants to be the new Fox News and it’s not even trying to hide it. Earlier this year Chris Licht became the new CEO of the cable network and immediately made it clear that he was going to change the network’s direction. One of Licht’s first moves was to embark on what Axios described as a “Capitol Hill diplomacy tour” and others described as a Republican boot-licking tour. Licht met with key lawmakers who had become wary of cable news and promised them that CNN was moving away from “alarmist” programming towards more neutral, objective reporting.
What does that mean in practice? Well, it appears to mean firing anyone who is critical of Donald Trump or Republicans. Last month CNN suddenly axed Brian Stelter’s Sunday show in a move many commentators considered politically motivated; Stelter had been an outspoken critic of Trump and was reviled by many on the right. Earlier this month White House correspondent John Harwood was fired shortly after calling Trump “a dishonest demagogue” on the air.
It’s not just who was fired that is alarming – it’s the abrupt manner in which they were fired. As the media analyst Josh Marshall noted “The most striking thing about Licht’s firings to date is how they are choreographed for … right-wing media consumption and designed to generate mass schadenfreude on the right: the bête noires Fox has been harping on for years suddenly marched to the top of the pyramid and hurled to the ground.” Licht says he’s moving away from sensational news, but he appears to be putting on his own little drama for the right.
After purging progressive voices, Licht has just made his first big hire: announcing on Tuesday that John Miller would be joining CNN as the network’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst. Miller isn’t exactly an obvious hire if you’re looking to brandish your new “neutrality” credentials. The former New York police department (NYPD) deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism is an extremely polarizing figure who made headlines in March when he testified to the New York city council that the NYPD did not, in his opinion, inappropriately spy on Muslims after the September 11 2001 attacks. Which is a weird thing to say because Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting has clearly shown that the NYPD used census data to spy on Muslims following September 11 and the department has settled a number of lawsuits related to the illegal spying.
Read more.
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Doctor Denounces C.I.A. Practice of ‘Rectal Feeding’ of Prisoners - The New York Times
Dr. Sondra S. Crosby, a court-approved expert on torture and other trauma, testified in a long-running defense effort by lawyers for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of orchestrating the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. The lawyers are seeking to suppress from his eventual trial admissions he made to federal investigators as tainted by torture.
She held up a tube that is designed to be put in a patient’s windpipe and said that — according to the agency’s once-secret records —C.I.A. prison staff inserted one just like it into Mr. Nashiri’s anus in May 2004. Agency personnel then used a syringe to inject a protein enriched nutritional shake into his body.
She testified that at Guantánamo Bay in 2013, Mr. Nashiri confided that, years earlier, C.I.A. personnel grabbed him from his cell, stripped him naked, shackled him at the wrists and ankles, bent him over a chair and administered the liquid.
He asked that she never again speak to him about it. And he did not attend the court session when she discussed it at length on Thursday.
“This was a very, very distressing painful, shameful stigmatizing event,” Dr. Crosby testified. “He experienced it as a violent rape, sexual assault.”
Another year would pass before Dr. Crosby found corroboration of the account. In December 2014, the Obama administration released a 500-page summary of a classified Senate study of the C.I.A.’s so-called black site program. It revealed the agency’s practice of using “rectal rehydration” and “rectal feeding” to punish prisoners.
At the time, the C.I.A. defended it as a sound medical procedure. The group Physicians for Human Rights then condemned the practice as “sexual assault masquerading as medical treatment.”
But this week the agency declined a request for a comment on the descriptions that were attributed to the C.I.A. in open court. Nor would an agency spokeswoman respond to Dr. Crosby’s testimony that Mr. Nashiri also told her that he was sodomized with a broom stick while the C.I.A. held him in a cell, nude with his wrists shackled above his head.
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By JENNIFER PELTZ
September 11, 2023
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans are looking back on the horror and legacy of 9/11, gathering Monday at memorials, firehouses, city halls and elsewhere to observe the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.
Commemorations stretch from the attack sites — at New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — to Alaska and beyond.
President Joe Biden is due at a ceremony on a military base in Anchorage.
His visit, en route to Washington, D.C., from a trip to India and Vietnam, is a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the nation, however remote.
The hijacked plane attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives and reshaped American foreign policy and domestic fears.
"On that day, we were one country, one nation, one people, just like it should be. That was the feeling — that everyone came together and did what we could, where we were at, to try to help,” said Eddie Ferguson, the fire-rescue chief in Virginia’s Goochland County.
It’s more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Pentagon and more than three times as far from New York.
But a sense of connection is enshrined in a local memorial incorporating steel from the World Trade Center’s destroyed twin towers.
The predominantly rural county of 25,000 people holds not just one but two anniversary commemorations: a morning service focused on first responders and an evening ceremony honoring all the victims.
Other communities across the country pay tribute with moments of silence, tolling bells, candlelight vigils and other activities.
In Columbus, Indiana, 911 dispatchers broadcast a remembrance message to police, fire and EMS radios throughout the 50,000-person city, which also holds a public memorial ceremony.
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts raise and lower the flag at a commemoration in Fenton, Missouri, where a “Heroes Memorial” includes a piece of World Trade Center steel and a plaque honoring 9/11 victim Jessica Leigh Sachs.
Some of her relatives live in the St. Louis suburb of 4,000 residents.
“We’re just a little bitty community,” said Mayor Joe Maurath, "but it’s important for us to continue to remember these events. Not just 9/11, but all of the events that make us free.”
New Jersey’s Monmouth County, which was home to some 9/11 victims, made Sept. 11 a holiday this year for county employees so they could attend commemorations.
As another way of marking the anniversary, many Americans do volunteer work on what Congress has designated both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.
At ground zero, Vice President Kamala Harris is due to join the ceremony on the National September 11 Memorial & Museum plaza.
The event will not feature remarks from political figures, instead giving the podium to victims’ relatives for an hourslong reading of the names of the dead.
James Giaccone signed up to read again this year in memory of his brother, Joseph Giaccone, 43. The family attends the ceremony every year to hear Joseph’s name.
“If their name is spoken out loud, they don’t disappear,” James Giaccone said in a recent interview.
The commemoration is crucial to him.
“I hope I never see the day when they minimize this,” he said. “It’s a day that changed history.”
Biden, a Democrat, will be the first president to commemorate Sept. 11 in Alaska, or anywhere in the western U.S.
He and his predecessors have gone to one or another of the attack sites in most years, though Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama each marked the anniversary on the White House lawn at times.
Obama followed one of those observances by recognizing the military with a visit to Fort Meade in Maryland.
First lady Jill Biden is due to lay a wreath at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon.
In Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked jets crashed after passengers tried to storm the cockpit, a remembrance and wreath-laying is scheduled at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Stoystown operated by the National Park Service.
Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is expected to attend the ceremony.
The memorial site will offer a new educational video, virtual tour and other materials for teachers to use in classrooms.
Educators with a total of more than 10,000 students have registered for access to the free “National Day of Learning” program, which will be available through the fall, organizers say.
“We need to get the word out to the next generation,” said memorial spokesperson Katherine Hostetler, a National Park Service ranger.
#9/11#New York#Twin Towers#World Trade Center#Pentagon#Pennsylvania#hijacked plane attacks#Heroes Memorial#Patriot Day#National Day of Service and Remembrance#Flight 93 National Memorial#National Park Service#National Day of Learning#National September 11 Memorial & Museum#11 September 2001#United States#terrorist attack#terror attack
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By: Nicholas Kristof
Published: Aug 23, 2023
While much of the rest of the industrialized world has become more secular over the last half-century, the United States has appeared to be an exception.
Politicians still end their speeches with “God bless America.” At least until recently, more Americans believed in the virgin birth of Jesus (66 percent) than in evolution (54 percent).
Yet evidence is growing that Americans are becoming significantly less religious. They are drifting away from churches, they are praying less and they are less likely to say religion is very important in their lives. For the first time in Gallup polling, only a minority of adults in the United States belong to a church, synagogue or mosque. (Most of the research is on Christians because they account for roughly 90 percent of believers in the United States.)
“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country,” Jim Davis and Michael Graham write in a book published this week, “The Great Dechurching.”
The big religious shifts of the past were the periodic Great Awakenings that beginning in the mid-1700s led to surges in religious attendance. This is the opposite: Some 40 million American adults once went to church but have stopped going, mostly in the last quarter-century.
“More people have left the church in the last 25 years than all the new people who became Christians from the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening and Billy Graham crusades combined,” Davis and Graham write.
This “dechurching,” as they call it, is apparent in most denominations, reducing the numbers of Presbyterians and Episcopalians and also of evangelicals like Southern Baptists. White and Black congregants have left churches in similar percentages, but Hispanic religious attendance has dipped less.
To be clear, the United States remains an unusually pious nation by the standards of the rich world. Pew reports that 63 percent of American adults identify as Christian — but that’s down from 78 percent in 2007. And in that same period the percentage of adults who say they have no religion has risen to 29 percent from 16 percent.
If this trend continues at the same pace, by the mid-2030s fewer than half of Americans may identify as Christian.
There are various theories for what is behind the struggles of Christianity, and multiple factors are probably at work. One noted by Davis and Graham is that to many people the church hasn’t seemed very Christian.
When the Rev. Jerry Falwell dismissed AIDS as God’s lethal judgment on promiscuity, he conveyed a sanctimoniousness that in the 1980s and 1990s allowed much of the religious right to turn a cold shoulder to the suffering of people with the virus.
Jesse Helms, a leader of the religious right in the Senate, even suggested in 1995 that funds for fighting AIDS should be reduced because gay men contract the virus through “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.” In retrospect, the most immoral conduct in America in the late 20th century was not taking place in gay bathhouses but in conservative churches where blowhards preached homophobia, embraced bigots like Helms and resisted efforts to counter AIDS — allowing millions of people, gay and straight alike, to die around the world. That is not morally inspiring.
Then in 2001, Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson suggested that the Sept. 11 terror attacks were God’s punishment for the behavior of feminists, gay people and secularists. My view was that God should have sued them for defamation.
The embrace of Donald Trump by many Christian leaders, even as he boasted about assaulting women, separated children from parents at the border and backed an insurrection, was for some a final indication of moral decay.
(It’s important to note that conservative churches had another side that worked tirelessly and without much recognition to address disease and poverty, as I’ve often written. It was evangelicals like Michael Gerson who in 2003 helped persuade President George W. Bush to adopt a huge initiative to fight AIDS worldwide. That may be the single best American program of my lifetime, saving some 25 million lives around the world so far. We owe Bush and evangelicals our thanks for that.)
The loss of religious community has far-reaching implications. Congregations are a crucial part of America’s social capital, providing companionship, food pantries and a pillar of community life. There’s also some evidence that religious faith is associated with increased happiness and better physical and mental health.
One of the most thoughtful contemporary religious commentators, Russell Moore, an evangelical who is now editor of Christianity Today, bluntly acknowledges the challenges ahead.
“American Christianity is in crisis,” Moore writes in his new book, “Losing Our Religion.” “The church is a scandal in all the worst ways.”
Moore is deeply critical of the way many evangelical leaders embraced Trump, and he is pained by church sex abuse scandals. In his own ministry, Moore said that he increasingly has heard from committed young Christians who are upset that their parents have been politically radicalized: “I was less likely to hear about wayward children going out into ‘the real world’ and losing their faith as I was to hear about wayward parents retreating into an imaginary world and losing their minds.”
Moore cites data suggesting that the reason people leave churches is not that they lose their belief in God so much as that they lose confidence in religious leaders and in the church’s moral leadership. He thinks faith can still recover; I’m not so sure.
Religious charlatans like Falwell may have meant to usher in a new Great Awakening, but in fact they taught millions of Americans to be wary of preening ventriloquists who claim to speak for God.
[ Archive: https://archive.is/UTeJx ]
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As I've said before, the statistics on church non-attendance don't correspond to non-belief - there will always be more people who believe than go to church. But non-attendance predicts a reliable pathway that does lead to non-belief.
"Church attendance is the first thing that goes, then belonging and finally belief — in that order. Belief goes last."
-- Ryan Burge
#dechurching#decline of religion#rise of the nones#empty the pews#the good news#good news#religion#religion is a mental illness
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"There was widespread shock and dismay over media and campus reactions to the atrocities Hamas committed against innocent Jews on Oct. 7, while we Jews observed Simchat Torah. The so-called mainstream or dominant news institutions initially held to their practice, in the name of impartiality, of avoiding calling Hamas’ marauding perpetrators “terrorists” or what they did, “terrorism.” This, so as not to summarily dismiss Hamas’ their claim that they were merely acting as freedom fighters against Zionist oppression. So, Hamas perpetrators were neutrally labeled as “militants,” “fighters,” “armed fighters” and “gunmen.”
And, on college and university campuses across the country student groups continued with their leftist, mindless anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism by issuing written statements signed by their members holding Israel responsible for all the death and destruction for supposedly having cruelly imposed its will on the Palestinians, thus creating the need for a Palestinian resistance. Also, once again, supportive left-leaning school officials said nothing to contradict this intellectual corruption and bigotry. Nor did most offer statements of their own condemning Hamas.
But it soon began to emerge that it was not necessarily going to be business as usual. It was hard for most people not to notice that non-pejoratives like militants, fighters, and gunmen seemed incongruous with the reporting on: the senseless, wanton, brutal slaughter and mutilation of innocent civilians – including men, women, children and the elderly – the decapitation of infants, the violations of women, the kidnappings. Indeed, what exactly does all of that have to do with any notion of a redeeming freedom fighter role.
The New York Times, as the acknowledged “paper of record” had been particularly infuriating, leading the way in rejecting the “terror” label. So, it is significant that it has now routinely taken to reporting on the events on Simchat Torah as “terror” and its Hamas perpetrators as “terrorists.” Perhaps even more important is how The Times now opines on the Oct. 7 events in its editorials. The other day it said this:
Israel stands on the verge of invading Gaza in response to the terrorist attacks by Hamas that many, including Israel’s leaders, have compared to Sept. 11 not just because of the scale and savagery but also because the terrorists sought to destroy the tranquility of daily life. They killed the very young and the very old, the strong and the weak, civilians and soldiers; they took some 150 hostages, including children, and survivors said the attackers raped women – all to send a message that no Israeli was safe.
It is also likely that there will be consequences for media outlets that don’t start to tell it like it is but persist in promoting anti-Israel propaganda. Thus, the New York Post reports that the leftist MSNBC, which has long been in the forefront of efforts to draw equivalence between Hamas terrorist brutalities and Israel’s self-defense, has lost 33% of it prime time viewers since Hamas attacked Israel. On the other hand, Fox News, which does a much better job of accurately reporting on the Middle East, has seen a full 42% jump in total viewership in the same period.
As for academia, there have already been financial repercussions arising from student support for Hamas’ Oct.7 attack and the deafening silence of school administrators. CEO’s of more than a dozen major companies, have declared they will not hire Harvard students who signed a letter blaming Israel for the attack.
Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife quit their posts on the executive board of Harvard’s Kennedy School – and presumably took their checkbook with them – in protest of Harvard’s president’s belated, lukewarm response to a student letter blaming Israel for the massacre committed by Hamas terrorists.
The Times of Israel reports that the Wexner Foundation philanthropy group has cut its ties with Harvard over the “dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians by terrorists last Saturday.”
In New York, Politico reports that at New York University School of Law, the president of the student bar association urged in its newsletter not to condemn “Palestinian resistance”:
This week, I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination… Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.
After that comment went viral, a major law firm promptly withdrew a plum job offer that had previously been extended to her.
So, in addition to the tragic events of Oct. 7, the aftermath also has some lessons for us.
The notion offered by some in the media that there is a redeeming side to the Hamas obsession with eliminating Israel was effectively debunked by assertions that the unhinged Hamas terrorism was Israel’s fault after all. How can anyone lay that savagery at the doorstep of the victims? How can such depravity be cast in a positive light? What credibility then can we give to their antipathy for Israel? o the same effect the widespread antipathy on college campuses for Jewish students and pro-Israel sentiment.
It is probably too much to expect that those in the media will now take the bull by the horns and become more even-handed on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But they could. And in all events, perhaps the business world will impose reality check on our future leaders in training."
Jerry Greenwald, The Jewish Press, Editorial, October 18 2023
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“Tragedy is part of Israeli life, and I knew it would be part of my time as president. But none of us imagined a tragedy like this.
Against our will, we in Israel find ourselves at a tipping point for the Middle East and for the world and at the center of what is nothing less than an existential struggle. This is not a battle between Jews and Muslims. And it is not just between Israel and Hamas. It is between those who adhere to norms of humanity and those practicing a barbarism that has no place in the modern world.
Just like ISIS and Al Qaeda, the Hamas terrorists who attacked Israeli homes and families had no qualms about burning babies. They tortured children, raped women and destroyed peace-loving communities. They were so proud of their deeds that they made sure to capture them on video and even broadcast them live. These videos will forever remain a stain on those Palestinians and their supporters who celebrated that day and a testament to the depravity of the terrorists and of the ideas that inspired them.
But almost as disturbing for me is the realization that many in the world, including in the West, are willing to rationalize these actions or even support them outright. In the capitals of Europe we’ve seen rallies supporting the total destruction of Israel “from the river to the sea.” Professors and students at American colleges make speeches and sign statements justifying terrorism, even glorifying it.
We’ve heard certain governments fail to denounce Hamas, instead condemning Israel’s response and even seeking to offer justification for Hamas’s atrocities. It would have been unthinkable to hear such moral confusion uttered after the Sept. 11 attacks or after bombings in London, Barcelona and Baghdad. When I spoke to a joint meeting of Congress this year, I said terrorism “contradicts humanity’s most basic principles of peace.” It turns out that not everyone agrees.
All of this shows that this collision of values is happening not just here in Israel but everywhere and that the terrorist ideology threatens all decent people, not only Jews. History has taught us that foul ideologies often find the Jewish people first — but tend not to stop there. We find ourselves on the front lines of this battle, but all nations face this threat, and they must understand that they could be next.
(…)
But anyone who thinks the cynical exploitation of civilian suffering will tie our hands and save Hamas this time is wrong. For us and for the Palestinians, the suffering will end only with the removal of Hamas. Anyone trying to tie our hands is, intentionally or not, undermining not only Israel’s defense but also any hope for a world where these atrocities cannot happen.
In the months and years before the Hamas massacre, we began to see signs of the emergence of a better Middle East, from the Persian Gulf to North Africa — one inspired by progress and partnership, one in which Israel could finally feel at home among our neighbors. Will this be the world that emerges from this crisis? Or will it be the world desired by the murderous fundamentalists of Hamas?
(…)
Much is at stake at this moment, not just the future of Israel. On Oct. 7 we were all jolted awake and presented with a shocking challenge to our hopes and morals. How we meet this challenge will shape our future.”
“Fears continue to mount that the United States might be dragged into a regional conflict in the Middle East. But this dreaded war has already broken out: In recent weeks, US military bases have come under repeated attack from Iranian proxies in the region, and there is no sign the attacks will abate anytime soon. At first, US Central Command published regular updates and claimed that the attacks had produced no casualties apart from a contractor who died from a heart attack while seeking shelter, as well as 19 service members who had suffered traumatic injury from Iranian-proxy strikes against bases in Syria and Iraq. The drones and rockets were all being shot down, CENTCOM insisted. Now, CENTCOM has ceased issuing updates. How many Americans have been wounded and killed thus far? How many more are at risk of death and serious injury? For the moment, we don’t know.
All of this points to an ominous development: the decline of deterrence. Over the past several weeks, US officials pleaded with Iran-backed militants and terror proxies to stop launching drones and rockets and threatened severe consequences should they fail to comply. Washington has followed through on these threats by retaliating with airstrikes, all the while stressing the defensive nature of these strikes and promising to back away the moment the attacks on US bases stop. But after every airstrike, armed groups in the region have dialed up their anti-US activities. Reports are now circulating of several large armed groups in Iraq declaring a de facto state of war against America.
The core of the problem here is that US forces are spread out across more than a dozen bases in the region. None of these bases is strong enough to defend itself from a concerted attack. What they have relied on, instead, was the perception that if you attacked even a weak American outpost, you were asking for trouble: It would only be a matter of time before the entire US war machine descended upon you to neutralize the threat.
The premise was that nobody would ever call the American bluff. Lately, it has dawned on America’s enemies that the promised devastating retaliation isn’t likely to come: Washington is overstretched and too sick of war to put serious muscle behind the threats. Perhaps it is technically possible for the United States to go to war across the Middle East—to dispatch more forces to Syria, to re-occupy Iraq, to launch an air war against the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yet given the difficulties it faced in Iraq, it is doubtful whether the US military would find success fighting a three- or four-front war; the effort might easily devolve into yet another quagmire. And there is little political appetite for attempting this. The public is tired of war, and congressional divisions over the federal budget show no signs of healing.
Deterrence was at first a helpful side effect of real American economic and military might. But over time, it became a crutch—and then, a Potemkin village: a façade put up as a cost-saving measure, to cover up the fact that the military was shrinking, political dysfunction growing, and fiscal stability eroding. Now, as drones and rockets rain down on US service members across Syria and Iraq, as the Houthis assail the Jewish state despite repeated warnings from Washington not to get involved, and as Hezbollah ramps up its encroachments on northern Israel, it is becoming clear that the Middle East has decided that American threats aren’t all that credible anymore.
Deterrence, once established, is cheap to maintain. But when it fails, it is incredibly costly to restore. Can the United States afford the massive costs that would be required to restore it? The coming days and weeks will provide us with an answer, but the signs are far from auspicious.”
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has used electronic surveillance programs to catch fentanyl smugglers and the hackers who temporarily shut down a major U.S. fuel pipeline, the White House said Tuesday as part of its push to have those programs renewed by Congress.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires at the end of this year. President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to convince Congress to renew the law, which authorizes spy agencies to capture huge swaths of foreign emails and phone calls. But lawmakers in both parties have concerns about protecting Americans’ privacy from warrantless searches after a series of FBI errors and misuses of intelligence data.
As part of its public campaign, the Biden administration released what it said were newly declassified examples of how U.S. intelligence uses Section 702. And the FBI announced new penalties for employees who misuse intelligence data in advance of a closely-watched Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the program Tuesday morning.
Previous administrations have oftencited the importance of Section 702 in stopping terrorism. But two decades after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. public is broadly skeptical of intelligence agencies and less certain of sacrificing civil liberties for security.
This time, the White House and supporters of Section 702 are targeting concerns over fentanyl, a synthetic opioid blamed for 75,000 U.S. deaths last year, and the shutdown of Colonial Pipeline, which led to gas shortages along the East Coast two years ago.
Senior administration officials briefed reporters on the new examples Monday on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.
Among the other examples the officials gave: The U.S. learned about Beijing's efforts to track and repatriate Chinese dissidents; the FBI was able to warn an American who was the target of foreign spies seeking information about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and the U.S. identified the people behind an Iran-linked ransomware attack against nonprofit groups last year.
The United States has already credited Section 702 with being used in the operation to kill al-Qaida head Ayman al-Zawahri and providing large amounts of the intelligence briefed daily to the president and other top officials.
The administration officials said they provided more specifics to Congress in classified briefings.
“We are trying to walk a careful line here where we're trying to explain both to the public and to members of Congress the importance of Section 702,” one official said. “But at the same time, we do need to be very careful about protecting the ways in which we collect information."
Under Section 702, the National Security Agency collects large amounts of foreign emails, phone calls, and other communications that the NSA and other agencies can then search for intelligence purposes.
That collection often snares the communications of Americans. While U.S. spy agencies are barred from targeting U.S. citizens or businesses, they can search Americans' names in Section 702 data and the FBI can use that data to investigate domestic crimes.
A series of surveillance court opinions and government reports has disclosed that FBI agents at times have failed to follow rules on searching that data. Agents wrongly ran queries for the names of a congressman on the House Intelligence Committee, people linked to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and participants in the 2020 protests following the police killing of George Floyd.
The FBI, backed by the White House and some Democrats, argues it has instituted better training and new rules that have sharply reduced the number of searches for American citizens. Supporters of the FBI say Congress should enshrine those rules into law so they can't be rolled back easily.
The bureau said Tuesday that it would begin to immediately suspend any employee's access to Section 702 databases for an incident involving “negligence." Repeat mistakes could result in an employee being reassigned or referred for an internal investigation.
Some key Republicans want to impose new criminal penalties on FBI agents accused of wrongdoing. Many in the GOP are deeply angry at the FBI for those mistakes as well as for omissions in the bureau's investigation of former President Donald Trump's ties to Russia. Some echo Trump's attacks on the FBI as part of a so-called “deep state.”
“There are reforms that are necessary,” said Rep. Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican who previously disclosed that agents searched his name in intelligence databases. “Figuring out the proper reforms and safeguards that we need to put in place is what we're discussing to try to see if we can get it reauthorized.”
And other Democrats say they won't vote to renew Section 702 without restrictions on access to U.S. citizens' communications.
Senior Biden administration officials reiterated Monday that they oppose proposals to require the FBI to get a warrant every time it searches for an American's information. Previous administrations have fought the idea as well.
The U.S. public at large is also skeptical of surveillance practices, according to new polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs, with Democrats and Republicans opposing some practices authorized by Section 702 in roughly equal measure.
A coalition of 21 civil liberties groups issued a letter Monday saying lawmakers should not renew the law without “critical reforms," including a warrant requirement.
"Although purportedly targeted at foreigners, Section 702 has become a rich source of warrantless government access to Americans’ phone calls, texts, and emails," the letter says. “This has turned Section 702 into something Congress never intended: a domestic spying tool.”
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Never intended my ass, shut it down and vote anyone that puts a yes into the hat for keeping this out of office
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On July 31, 2022, a U.S. drone strike killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri at a Taliban guest house in Kabul. A year later, al Qaeda has still not announced Zawahiri’s successor.
This has made it difficult for the core group to stake a claim to the leadership of the global jihadi movement or even to remain an important player regionally or internationally. Indeed, al Qaeda, the broader set of affiliate groups it claims to lead, and the jihadi movement as a whole have all suffered repeated blows in recent years—reducing the threat to the United States and its allies.
For an organization that once struck fear into the hearts and minds of millions of Americans after Sept. 11, 2001, and sparked a so-called global war on terror that dramatically reoriented U.S. foreign policy for two decades, al Qaeda’s almost complete disappearance from both the daily news headlines and the broader foreign-policy conversation in Washington these days is remarkable.
A quick look at the number of deadly jihadi attacks in the United States since 9/11 suggests the organization’s decline in both capabilities and ideological influence. According to data from the New America Foundation, jihadis have killed 107 Americans on U.S. soil since 9/11, compared with the 130 killed by right-wing terrorists. The last significant jihadi attack was four years ago, when a Saudi Air Force trainee working with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group’s Yemen branch, killed three sailors at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in 2019. Pensacola was the only post-9/11 attack on U.S. soil that a jihadi group abroad coordinated; the others involved jihadis who were inspired by al Qaeda or its onetime affiliate turned competitor, the Islamic State, but who had little or no contact with the groups themselves.
The core organization that Zawahiri led has not directed an attack on the United States since 9/11, and after a spate of bloody attacks in Europe, has not conducted one there since the London attacks of 2005—almost 20 years ago. In Europe, affiliates such as AQAP have had more success, such as that group’s 2015 attack on the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, but their operations have also decreased in recent years. The Islamic State has conducted more attacks than al Qaeda affiliates, including devastating shootings and suicide bombings in Paris and Brussels in 2015 and 2016 respectively, but a pattern of decline in Europe is clear.
Once-strong affiliates such as AQAP, as well as al Qaeda-linked groups in the Philippines, Syria, and other countries, have suffered numerous leadership losses, internal divisions, and other debilitating problems, making it harder for them to conduct external attacks. Measuring overall support is difficult, but foreign fighters no longer flock to places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, where the Islamic State and al Qaeda were once ascendant and are now far weaker. To be clear, the picture is not all bad for jihadis—in Africa, new jihadi organizations are emerging, and strong groups such as al-Shabab in Somalia are flourishing—but decline is evident in most of the rest of the world.
Part of this weakness is due to the civil war that erupted in 2013 within the jihadi movement between al Qaeda and its upstart offshoot, the Islamic State. In many Muslim countries, most notably Afghanistan, parts of the Sahel, and Syria, al Qaeda and its allies directly waged war against the rival Islamic State organization and its so-called “provinces.” Today in Afghanistan, allies of al Qaeda—the Taliban—are in a bloody fight with the Islamic State’s proxy. In addition to the tangible impact the death toll has had on the capabilities of all involved, this infighting also discredited both movements: Few starry-eyed, would-be holy warriors are eager to sign up to kill other holy warriors.
The movement has also fragmented and localized. Most of the affiliate groups— from Mali to Nigeria to Afghanistan—now focus almost exclusively on the local civil war or insurgency that they are fighting in. You still do not want to be a Western missionary or tourist who stumbles across their path, but this shift in focus reduces the chance of an international terrorist attack. Some jihadi groups, such as those in West Africa, probably could launch a terrorist strike on the West if they put in the effort—they are just focused elsewhere. Their brutality is directed toward their own countries and at their neighbors, with thousands of people—many of them Muslims themselves—dying from terrorist attacks and civil wars involving jihadi groups.
The enduring counterterrorism campaign against al Qaeda and its affiliates, as well as the Islamic State and other parts of the movement, has also taken its toll. U.S. drone strikes have relentlessly decimated the ranks of the senior al Qaeda core, affiliate leaders, and other jihadi figures, even when they try to hide in remote parts of Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Today, the core al Qaeda organization has “far fewer” than 200 fighters, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The anti-Islamic State campaign, too, has proved highly effective. At the height of its so-called caliphate in 2014 and 2015, the group ruled over millions of people and controlled territory in Iraq and Syria the size of Great Britain. But by 2019, the U.S.-led coalition drove the caliphate underground. The group still launches attacks in Iraq and Syria and has thousands of fighters there, but like many al Qaeda affiliates, it appears focused on the civil war it is fighting, not international terrorism.
U.S. training and aid extended to foreign militaries and security forces has made them more capable of and more willing to target local jihadi groups, while an ongoing global intelligence campaign disrupts jihadi cells around the world. Because of this constant manhunt, it is dangerous for jihadi leaders to communicate, making it hard for them to direct affiliate groups and operatives, further decentralizing the movement. As the groups weaken, they have a harder time overcoming more rigorous airport screening and travel controls, while more aggressive FBI efforts make it more likely that plots in the United States will be discovered.
With variations, this broad counterterrorism campaign began under U.S. President George W. Bush after 9/11 and continued in the Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and now Joe Biden administrations, suggesting that it has considerable staying power regardless of which party is in the White House.
It may also explain part of why al Qaeda has not named a new leader. Some senior al Qaeda operatives are hiding in Iran, including Saif al-Adel, whom some say is al Qaeda’s de facto leader. Tehran does not cooperate with U.S. intelligence, and Iran is a no-go zone for the U.S. military, as a strike there would be seen as an act of war. That makes it hard to target operatives there. (Though Israel managed to kill a senior al Qaeda figure in Iran.)
However, the Iranian government also places restrictions on al Qaeda figures in the country, as Tehran hardly needs another reason for the United States and its allies to punish it. In addition, in the highly sectarian world of jihadi politics, al Qaeda’s quiet alliance with Iran is a source of criticism from the Islamic State and other jihadis. Having your de facto leader be a prisoner, or at least muzzled, in a country that many jihadis consider to be worse than the United States is hardly a way to win new followers.
Obama, Trump, and Biden all sought to reduce the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and Afghanistan, with the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan being the most dramatic example. Such a shift has reduced the number of nearby U.S. targets and simply made the United States less important to the region (often at the expense of U.S. influence and regional stability), making it hard to push locally focused groups to see the United States as their main enemy. In addition, the civil wars in Mali, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere do not have the emotive power for many Muslims that Iraq did after 2003 or Syria after 2011, reducing the number of foreigners who volunteer to fight in the jihadi ranks.
Afghanistan remains an important question mark. The Taliban appear to value international legitimacy, but their hosting of Zawahiri and general refusal to distance themselves from al Qaeda raise questions about whether the group will allow their territory to again be used to stage international terrorist attacks. Although the United States was able to kill Zawahiri in Afghanistan, the lack of an on-the-ground presence makes it hard to gather intelligence, conduct strikes, and otherwise maintain pressure on groups in the region.
Zawahiri’s death compounded many problems for the jihadi movement. There is no obvious successor, as most members of the founding generation are dead or, like Adel, isolated from the rest of the movement. With no clear leader, it is hard for the core organization to direct its affiliates or even to encourage unaffiliated jihadis to attack the United States: These loose cannons will find inspiration elsewhere or nowhere at all.
Perhaps most importantly, time does not appear to be on al Qaeda’s side. The terrorist world is highly competitive, and as al Qaeda dawdles, new causes and groups arise to compete for money and recruits, while the U.S.-led counterterrorism campaign continues to thin its ranks.
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September 12: The attacks of September 11th were intended to break our spirit. Instead America emerged stronger than ever before. The occupation that lost the highest amount of lives were firefighters. 343 firefighters died on that day running into the buildings as everyone was running out. But those 343 inspired many thousands of people -including myself- to become firefighters. We’re not about what happened on 9/11. We’re about what happened on 9/12 when America came out of shock, dusted themselves off and went to work. Above is a picture of 65 on-duty members of the FDNY who lost their fathers due to Sept 11 terror attacks, however they decided to honor their fathers’ courage and sacrifice by following in their footsteps.
(Photo Credit : Nigel Parry)
Eddie Dvir
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i asked my mom on what the "sept 11" is supposed to mean on the family calendar and she was like "WELL UGH what is it supposed to be?! what do you think??" and i was like this is my time. so i go. "oh, i dont know mom, what happened on september eleventh?" and she goes "terror attacks!!!! terror attacks happened!!" and im like "uhuh, terror attacks?" and she goes "in america!! there was a terror attack on september 11th!!!" and i, playing along i was like "oh yeah? how do you know about it?" and she goes "it was all over the news! for an entire month, you could NOT hear anything besides the falling of the twin towers!" and im like "uhuh" and she continues like "do you know how many people mustve died in there?? it was like two hundred story high skyscraper buildings! so many people died!" and then turns out the calendar is for her appointments lol
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The suspected architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and his fellow defendants may never face the death penalty under plea agreements now under consideration to bring an end to their more than decadelong prosecution, the Pentagon and FBI have advised families of some of the thousands killed.
The notice, made in a letter that was sent to several of the families and obtained by The Associated Press, comes 1 1/2 years after military prosecutors and defense lawyers began exploring a negotiated resolution to the case.
The prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been troubled by repeated delays and legal disputes, especially over the legal ramifications of the interrogation under torture that the men initially underwent while in CIA custody. No trial date has been set.
“The Office of the Chief Prosecutor has been negotiating and is considering entering into pre-trial agreements,” or PTAs, the letter said. It told the families that while no plea agreement “has been finalized, and may never be finalized, it is possible that a PTA in this case would remove the possibility of the death penalty.”
Some relatives of the nearly 3,000 people killed outright in the terror attacks expressed outrage over the prospect of ending the case short of a verdict. The military prosecutors pledged to take their views into consideration and present them to the military authorities who would make the final decision on accepting any plea agreement.
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are your posts original content? what are your sources?
Hii ^^
Yes, my posts are original content.
I mean, i make every gif, but the videos (and anime of course 😅) are not mine.
All retro footage, on my blog, can be found on Youtube (while all channels still existing).
Here you have my sources (until today sept/15/22)
Ａｎｉｍｅｓ:
-Ranma 1/2
-Excel Saga
-Neon Genesis Evangelion
-Akihabara Dennou Gumi
-Taiho Sichauzo (seasons 1 & 2)
-Ghost Sweeper Mikami
-Sailor Moon (90's)
-Street Fighter 2 (anime 1995)
-Magical Taruruuto Kun
-Bubble Gum Crisis Tokyo 2040
-Idol Tenshi Youkoso Youko
Ｅｃｃｏｊａｍｓ Ｇｉｆｓ (name of the video - channel)
📼 "New York City night 1995" - drakosek
ワールド・トレード・センター Ｇｉｆｓ
📼 "A Drive Through NYC In 1997" - adam echahly
📼 "Night Before 9/11: NYC newscast before terror attacks" - Eyewitness News ABC7NY
📼 "Before attack WTC people inside 2000 HD Quality TOP" - MrRheingold
📼 "Pre-9/11 World Trade Center visit (August 2001)" - Quadinaros
📼 "NYC World Trade Center Top of the world Motion Theater-9/11 Never Forget" - Image Work Communications
日本のナイト・ライフ Ｇｉｆｓ from these channels:
🈶Lyle Hiroshi Saxon
🈶NichiBeiTrader
🈶ｂｒｈｍ
🈶Olivier Barles
Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ ＴＶ Ｇｉｆｓ:
📺Japan Commercial TV
📺80sCommercialVault
Ａｎａｌｏｇ Ｈｏｒｒｏｒ Ｇｉｆｓ:
📹Kane Pixels
📹A-Sync Research
����Local 58
As far as i remember 😅
If you want a specific source, maybe something i forgot, you may ask me ^^
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Senate Republicans are lining up against a House-passed bill that would authorize special offices within the government to investigate and monitor domestic terrorism, which is being pushed in the wake of a racist shooting in Buffalo that left 10 people dead.
The GOP compares the proposal, which sets up offices in the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the FBI to target domestic terrorism, to the recently paused disinformation board set up by the Biden administration.
“It sounds terrible,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) of the House-passed bill, predicting it won’t get 10 Republicans in the Senate.
“It’s like the disinformation board on steroids. Another way to look at is the Patriot Act for American citizens,” he added, referring to the law passed immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that expanded the government’s power to monitor phone and email conversations and collect bank records.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) says he will bring the bill to the floor this week as a response to the killings at a Buffalo supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood. The bill passed the House 222-203 on a mostly party-line vote, with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) casting the only GOP vote in favor.
Democrats increasingly see the need for the government to take more action against the threat of domestic terrorism given a long string of incidents that includes the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and several mass shootings targeting Black, Hispanic and Jewish people.
But the efforts have run into opposition from the GOP.
Senate conservatives say empowering the departments of Homeland Security and Justice with new authority to monitor domestic terrorism could easily morph into federal policing of political speech, and they worry it would be more targeted toward anti-government, anti-immigration activists than extreme left-wing groups.
“I’m completely opposed to this idea that we would be giving the federal government and federal law enforcement power and authority to surveil Americans, to engage in any kind of monitoring of speech that is directed toward censorship. I think it’s extremely frightening and I can’t believe they haven’t learned their lesson from the disinformation board debacle,” Hawley said.
The Biden administration ran into a storm of controversy last month when it announced the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board “to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.” The backlash grew so intense that the Homeland Security Department put the project on pause after three weeks and its executive director, Nina Jankowicz, resigned.
Republican lawmakers argue that bringing the bill to the floor after the shooting in Buffalo is a veiled political attack on conservative critics of illegal immigration.
Some Senate Republicans see the domestic terrorism bill as another attempt to target the right and point to calls that Democrats made in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to begin monitoring groups on the right as potential domestic terrorism threats.
“That’s exactly what it is,” said Hawley, arguing that the Department of Homeland Security has taken “a very different tone” with groups on the left that have threatened violence against Supreme Court justices after a draft ruling overturning Roe v. Wade leaked.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a senior member of the Homeland Security Committee, said law enforcement is already supposed to be tracking domestic terrorism threats.
“The Democrats can’t even wait an hour before they blame the Republicans for the Buffalo shooting. I think it’s despicable,” he said.
Johnson said “there’s a huge double standard” between calls by Democrats to authorize federal law enforcement to track extreme speech when it comes from groups on the right compared to groups on the left.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called on the Department of Defense to investigate white supremacy and extreme ideology in the military after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The Justice Department announced in January the formation of a special unit to fight domestic terrorism and has doubled its investigations of people suspected of fomenting domestic extremism over the past two years, signaling it’s a top priority for Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The Biden administration unveiled a 32-page plan in June for identifying domestic extremists, an issue that took on new urgency for the mob of Trump supporters swarmed the Capitol in January of 2021 in an attempt to stop the certification of President Biden’s victory.
The shooting in Buffalo has given Democrats on the Hill a new reason to crack down on domestic terrorism after the 18-year-old murder suspect, Payton Gendron, allegedly posted a manifesto that cited replacement theory.
Biden and Schumer have implicitly and explicitly blamed the shooting on conservative pundits, commentators and some politicians who have amplified a conspiracy theory that posits that Democrats are trying to undermine the political influence of white Christian voters in the country by encouraging illegal immigration.
“The mass killing in Buffalo last weekend was a tragic reminder of the threat posed by violent White supremacists and other far-right extremists,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said at a press conference, announcing that he would circulate the Senate’s domestic terrorism bill among GOP colleagues in hope of winning their support.
He noted that in March of last year, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that the threat of domestic terrorism is “metastasizing” across the country.
“We’ve seen evidence of that in so many places. Sadly we saw it in Buffalo,” Durbin said.
But so far, no Republicans have signed onto the bill, Durbin told The Hill.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would be very surprised if the bill gets 10 Republican votes to overcome an expected filibuster.
“I get a little concerned when people want to pass new laws to supplement laws that are already in place that would be used to charge people with crimes. I don’t necessarily believe we need a new law to convict people who have committed other crimes,” he said of the domestic terrorism bill.
“I’m a little wary of the political motivation and charging Americans who otherwise engaged in peaceful protest with crimes,” he said.
#us politics#news#republicans#conservatives#2022#president joe biden#biden administration#department of homeland security#department of justice#fbi#domestic terrorism#fuck white supremacists#white supremacists#white supremacy#fuck white supremacy#alt right#sen. josh hawley#senate majority leader chuck schumer#sen. chuck schumer#Rep. Adam Kinzinger#sen. ron johnson#sen. dick durbin#sen. john cornyn#sen. Richard Blumenthal#sen. Dianne Feinstein#us senate
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